Words, Words, Words is all about the wonder of words. Drawing on a lifetime's experience, David Crystal explores language in all its rich varieties through words: the very building blocks of our communication. Language has no life of its own: it only exists in the mouths and ears, hands, eyes and brains of its users. As we are guided expertly and passionately through the mysteries and delights of word origins, histories, spellings, regional and social variations, taboo words, jargon, and wordplay, the contribution we all play in shaping the linguistic world around us becomes evident. Words, Words, Words is a celebration of what we say and how we say it. It invites us to engage linguistically with who we are: to understand what words tell us about where we come from and what we do. And as they continually shape our lives, it suggests ways that we can look at words anew and get involved with collecting and coining words ourselves.

Do you spend hours creating word lists and weekly vocabulary tests only to find that your students have forgotten the words by the following week? Janet Allen and her students were frustrated with the same problem. Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12' describes the research that changed the way she and many other teachers teach vocabulary. It offers educators practical, research-based solutions for helping students fall into new language, learn new words, and begin to use those words in their speaking and writing lives. This book offers teachers detailed strategy lessons in the following areas: Activating and building background word knowledge Making word learning meaningful and lasting Building concept knowledge Using word and structural analysis to create meaning Using context as a text support Making reading the heart of vocabulary instructionWords, Words, Words provides educators with a strong research base, detailed classroom-based lessons, and graphic organizers to support the strategy lessons. At a time when teachers are struggling to meet content standards in reading across the curriculum, this book offers some practical solutions for meeting those standards in ways that are meaningful and lasting.

Words, Words, Words is a wide–ranging collection of literary essays that astonish the reader with their candor, insight, and generosity. Many of them reveal the absurdity that so often underlies our most passionate thoughts, our most cherished moments, even our most disturbing fears and recognitions. They echo everywhere with a kind of cosmic laughter that never lets us forget we are constructs of our own capacity to see through language — that at a most fundamental level, what we think about our selves is inevitably an extension of what we learn in our reading of others. Here we also get to find out what Bowering most cherishes about writers and writing: who Al Purdy was; what David McFadden's work pays attention to; when the world of poetry changed; where Artie Gold appeared as a light fixture in our darkness; how bpNichol's Martyrology legitimized the vernacular; why we cannot read history without encountering Shakespeare. Neither precious nor shy, their subjects range from the sublime to the ridiculous — from the inarticulate nature of grief to a modest proposal for the uses of the dead. Together, they constitute a history of the education of Canada's first Poet Laureate: from his adolescent dreams of becoming a writer; his early recognition of the discipline required to forge a life in language; the ongoing feud between the TISH authors and the self–appointed nationalist police; Bowering shares with us what he has learned in a lifetime of exercising his craft — even including what constitutes bad writing. Whether in deconstructing the cliches of genre fiction; the ghetto of identity politics; the hapless failure of any attempt to harness language to utilitarian purposes; the abuse of language required to write "sensitive" prose and verse; he constantly reminds us that the first and most important rule of life is: pay attention.

Surveying the expanding conflict in Europe during one of his famous fireside chats in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt ominously warned that "we know of other methods, new methods of attack. The Trojan horse. The fifth column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery. Spies, saboteurs, and traitors are the actors in this new strategy." Having identified a new type of war -- a shadow war -- being perpetrated by Hitler's Germany, FDR decided to fight fire with fire, authorizing the formation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to organize and oversee covert operations. Based on an extensive analysis of OSS records, including the vast trove of records released by the CIA in the 1980s and '90s, as well as a new set of interviews with OSS veterans conducted by the author and a team of American scholars from 1995 to 1997, The Shadow War Against Hitler is the full story of America's far-flung secret intelligence apparatus during World War II. In addition to its responsibilities generating, processing, and interpreting intelligence information, the OSS orchestrated all manner of dark operations, including extending feelers to anti-Hitler elements, infiltrating spies and sabotage agents behind enemy lines, and implementing propaganda programs. Planned and directed from Washington, the anti-Hitler campaign was largely conducted in Europe, especially through the OSS's foreign outposts in Bern and London. A fascinating cast of characters made the OSS run: William J. Donovan, one of the most decorated individuals in the American military who became the driving force behind the OSS's genesis; Allen Dulles, the future CIA chief who ran the Bern office, which he called "the big window onto the fascist world"; a veritable pantheon of Ivy League academics who were recruited to work for the intelligence services; and, not least, Roosevelt himself. A major contribution of the book is the story of how FDR employed Hitler's former propaganda chief, Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstengl, as a private spy. More than a record of dramatic incidents and daring personalities, this book adds significantly to our understanding of how the United States fought World War II. It demonstrates that the extent, and limitations, of secret intelligence information shaped not only the conduct of the war but also the face of the world that emerged from the shadows.

Penned by a writer who had to teach himself the rules of English grammar, A Few Words About Words offers an easy and accessible approach to understanding and using the English language. In a world dominated by countless print and social media outlets, written communication is king. Writing "your" when you mean "you're" and "there" when you mean "they're" can make the difference between getting or not getting new business. A missing comma can result in a PR catastrophe, and a well-written line can be remembered for generations. And yet, many native speakers struggle with the English language. Spawned from the widely-circulated and beloved newsletter of the same name, Joe Diorio's A Few Words About Words blends quick-witted anecdotes from more than 30 years of newsletter entries that highlight the common, uncommon, and surprising grammar mistakes most English speakers make. The result is a digestible, all-encompassing look at English grammar. For anyone who has ever wondered whether "also" should follow or precede the verb; if there's a difference between 'preventive' or 'preventative'; or whether the Oxford comma is as important as everyone says it is, this book provides relief for many common grammar anxieties. Humorous, enlightening, and completely comprehensible, A Few Words About Words will be the go-to grammar guide you pick up and can't put down.

Educational resource for teachers, parents and kids!

A lack of vocabulary development affects students' reading comprehension and their writing skills. This can be particularly damaging as students move through middle and secondary grades, when content area reading requires so much vocabulary learning, influencing future success and career choices. Vocabulary learning particularly affects the success of English learners; but when vocabulary instruction is done well, it can help close the gap in reading and writing performance. Teaching Vocabulary: 50 Creative Strategies, Grades 6-12 was developed by middle and secondary master teachers involved n the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project, including literacy expert Dr. Gail Tompkins. This book shares 50 classroom-tested strategies demonstrated to improve vocabulary skills in 6th through 12th graders in classrooms where 92 percent of the school population are English learners. Clear-cut steps for implementing each strategy, specifics on how the strategy fits within the curriculum, and information on how students responded to the instruction offer valuable tools for you as you help your students develop their vocabulary skills and their overall competence in literacy. "The volume contains a great many practical, useful, and feasible ideas, which would be a welcome set of additions to the busy teacher's repertoire of practices." Margot Kinberg, National University "This is the best book on how to teach vocabulary that I've seen in years. This book is a smorgasbord of lesson plans with a large and varied menu. We see a variety of teaching styles and methods, all grounded in solid theoretical underpinnings." Joseph Geunther, University of Wisconsin, Platteville "One great strength is that the strategies often accommodate more than one learning style." Jackie Glasgow, Ohio University